City traffic affecting businesses

By HELEN TARAWA
TRAFFIC congestion in Port Moresby is affecting businesses in the past month, particularly in the central business district, city manager Bernard Kipit says.
Kipit told the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry breakfast meeting that they had been holding “frequent discussions” with the road construction company China Harbour Engineering working on the Poreporena Freeway on how to ease the congestion into downtown.
Members of the business community are concerned that the rehabilitation work on the freeway was affecting their operations.
They expect it to worsen with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meetings.
Kpit said hopefully the situation would improve.
“There’s a bit of setback there but we are trying,” he said.
“Hopefully we will get it right.
“They (company) are concentrating on one side of the highway.
“Hopefully in the next two months they will complete that and it gets opened up to traffic. And they move to the other side of the road.
“In doing that we should see some improvements – going all the way from the Stanley Esplanade to Erima traffic lights.”
Issues were also raised about the planned closure of the Central Business District for two days during the Apec leaders’ summit in November.
Kipit said the NCDC was yet to be notified of the closure.
The upgrade of the Poreporena freeway is likely to be completed by October.
“The contractors are out there 24 hours a day and we are determined that the road would be completed before the leaders’ summit in November.”